Friday, March 16, 2018

This is the sixth and last Tibetan Red album, originally released in 2017 as a limited edition CDr.

" Salvador Francesch, also known as Tibetan Red, had his first release out in 1985 and now, 32 years later he releases his sixth release. I have no idea why there was a five-year hiatus between this and 'Narrative Spaces', of which I am not sure was reviewed by Vital Weekly, or even a seventeen-year gap between his first and second release. The title here is 'Calligraphy' and perhaps by way of explanation it says on the cover 'Calligraphy as a form of friction. Friction, as an expression of the Electricity Entity', which is a bit cryptically, I guess. The music of Tibetan Red is also cryptically, I would think. There are field recordings used, I would think, made in the Pyrenees of Catalonia, where Francesch lives since 1999, which are manipulated by means I am not entirely sure of. They might be some kind of computer processing, but for all I know Francesch might be using analogue treatments, for instance by playing back the sound in his living room and picking that up with a microphone from an odd angle, or heavily amplified of some kind. That amplification leads in 'Stone Calligraphy' to some painfully high-pitched sound at the start that I must admit skipped to that point in the composition which made it more interesting. The three pieces on this disc are all over fifteen minutes, and below sixteen, and uses some of that 'classic' Tibetan Red treatments or heavily layered sounds, radical sonic treatments going from quite low to incredible high, but all of which are derived (I am guessing here) from field recordings. And sometimes it seems there are just one or two layers of sound playing at the same time. Some of this also sounds like actual interventions in the environment to add a musical narrative to the proceedings, such as the scraping of the pavement in 'Stone Calligraphy'. All of this is very low on telling a story as such and it works like abstract events happening simultaneously, without much internal interaction. It makes all of this not very easy listening; it's like listening to a private ritual performed outdoors. We have no idea what we are witnessing, but it sounds mighty obscure and excellent throughout. "
(FdW, Vital Weekly 1094)

Friday, March 9, 2018

As a French man living most of the time in West Africa for 15 years, I'm more than happy to anounce the release of that album by In_o from South Africa, the very first Nostalgie De La Boue release by an African artist, and hopefully not the last !
In_o is a member of COYH, an experimental/minimal DJ duo. Tracks titled COYH are ghost produced by In_o for COYH.

Sunday, February 25, 2018

Michel Madrange (M.NOMIZED, No Unauthorized) has recently put online a lot of Fraction Studio archives, but as far as I know this rare No Unauthorized tape (one of their first ones) was not available anywhere for free download yet.

Wednesday, February 21, 2018

Obscure but excellent tape released by cassette label Mindscan run by Robert Maycock, a former member of Satori (Margate, UK). Discipline is a band from the same town. This seems to be their only release. Great music sounding a bit like Bourbonese Qualk. Sebastian Gandera, from North-East France, is one of those French minimal modern classical artists who appeared at the end of the eighties. This tape seems to be his very first one.

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Voodoo Muzak were from Bayonne but considered as belonging to the Bordeaux scene. Originated as a duo, they later became a bigger band. Blunt is the duo's first LP. More infos here.
And more RWA / Voodoo Muzak here.

Monday, February 5, 2018

Talking about the underground scene of Bordeaux, here is a nice archive. Ensemble Vide was first a radio show on La Vie Au Grand Hertz !, then a cassette (and vinyl) label run by Laurent Boyer (aka Papa Boyer) who's currently organizing the festival Cassettes dans la tête.

Thursday, December 28, 2017

This tape is a true rarity. It was Sinfonien Produkt's last release, just before Christophe Baudelot (alias Christophe B.) stopped the label. Then it was distributed by S.J. Organisation only, and Christophe doesn't even have a copy of the cover in his archives. Longtime forgotten, it has been saved from oblivion by Mors Mea, who found a pre-commercial personal copy in Philippe Pissier's archives and ripped it. Then Christophe Baudelot remastered it. And the loop was closed.

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

As I was preparing Rien Ni Personne ~volume II & III, I realized that several artists submitting tracks lived in Bordeaux, my hometown. It gave me an idea : after having tried to capture the french post-industrial and experimental music scene in Rien Ni Personne, why not tighten the focal length on one town ? Then I remembered that in the early eighties, a local compilation tape, Dossier Bordeaux 84, was the first release of DMA2, the label and concert organizer which brought to my knowledge the world of industrial, post-industrial and experimental musics. Thirty-three years after the release of that cassette, I decided to draw a new panorama of post-industrial and experimental musics in Bordeaux.
Many thanks to all artists involved, to Jean-Charles Rigaud for the cover painting, and to Jef Benech' for the booklet !

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Given the success of Rien Ni Personne ~a french compilation released last year, I decided to do another volume. It became a monster, twice bigger than the first one (184 tracks, more than 23 hours of music, the equivalent of 18 CDs).
So here is the second/third and final volume of this collection of France's finest artists.
Many thanks to all artists involved and to Jef Benech' for the artwork and booklet !

Monday, July 17, 2017

Those who follow Nostalgie De La Boue blog & netlabel know that Big City Orchestra is a personal favorite - for 30 years now. And in the current craziness of re-releasing, I don't understand why they still don't have one (or more) vinyl or CD boxset of their finest recordings (the same could be said for a few others, such as Maybe Mental).